Stormdancer

  COWARD.

  “May I see him, great Lord?”

  Yoritomo seemed surprised by the request. He stared at her for a long, pregnant moment, drumming his fingertips on the hilt of his katana.

  “Very well,” he finally nodded, turning to the green-eyed samurai. “Hiro-san, you will be the Lady Yukiko’s escort while she is our guest. Should any trouble come to her, or because of her, you will pay the forfeit. Is this clear?”

  “Hai!” The samurai strode to Yukiko’s side and bowed to his Lord, palm over fist.

  Yukiko realized the Shōgun was watching her, something unpleasant coiled in his eyes. As she met his stare, he let it linger a minute longer, drifting down to her throat, over her breasts. She felt naked and exposed in her tattered clothing, folding her arms and turning her eyes back to the floor.

  “It is settled,” he nodded. “Visit your father, then Hiro-san will show you to your quarters. Your desire is his command. I will check in occasionally to monitor your … progress.”

  “As you say, great Lord.”

  Yukiko covered her fist and gave a deep bow. The Shōgun replaced his respirator, collar folding over his throat with a small, metallic hymn. Spinning on his heel, he stalked from the pit, red silk billowing behind him. His retinue fell into step after him, heavy metal tread cracking on the stone. Faint trails of chi fumes twisted through the air in their wake, weaving among each other and drifting up into the red sky overhead.

  How long until you begin to moult?

  WEEKS. PERHAPS THREE. WHEN THE SUMMER BEGINS TO DIE.

  We must keep your wings hidden while your new feathers grow in. Yoritomo must think you crippled. He must underestimate us both.

  HE WILL.

  Yukiko finally turned to the Iron Samurai looming over her, breath hissing through his tusks. Embossed black steel covered his body, spaulders broad and flat and studded with rivets, expression entirely hidden behind the twisted oni mask. Yukiko looked into his eyes, at those irises colored like creamy jade. Though he was the right height, she couldn’t see enough of his face to confirm her hopes. Butterflies floated through her stomach on lead-lined wings.

  Is it really him?

  YOU MONKEYS ARE SO STRANGE. SO MUCH FUSS OVER COUPLING.

  Buruu!

  WHAT? YOU WISH TO MATE WITH THIS ONE. YOU ARE OF AN AGE. THERE IS—

  Gods, stop it! You’re worse than my father.

  “We meet again, daughter of foxes,” the samurai said.

  “It is you.”

  Her pulse pounded in her veins, the memory of her dreams rising with the flush in her cheeks. She shoved them away in a dark corner of her head, barred and locked the door.

  “You remember me?” A hint of a smile in his voice.

  “You remember me.” She shrugged.

  “How could I forget?” He covered his fist and bowed. “I am Lord Tora Hiro, sworn of the Kazumitsu Elite.”

  “Kitsune Yukiko.”

  “I know who you are, Lady.” The smile in his voice was unmistakable now. “It is my honor to serve you.”

  BE WARY. HE SERVES THE SHŌGUN FIRST AND FOREMOST. HE IS A WEAPON IN THE MACHINE.

  … Maybe he’s not like that.

  DO NOT BE BLINDED BY YOUR DESIRE TO—

  Gods, if you say “couple” again I’m going to scream.

  CALL IT WHAT YOU WISH, THEN.

  I know what he is and who he serves. Not everyone who swears to the Shōgun is evil, Buruu. I wear Yoritomo’s irezumi on my flesh too, remember?

  Buruu snorted and prowled away, lying down near the spike that kept him tethered. He heaved a great sigh through his nostrils, straw dancing off the ground, slipping and spinning through the air. The Iron Samurai watched with unashamed wonder.

  “It is beautiful,” Hiro said. “Can you really hear its thoughts?”

  “Hai,” she nodded, watching the Iron Samurai carefully. “I suppose that repels you.”

  Hiro checked over his shoulder, ensuring they were alone.

  “I am no advocate of the Guild, or their views.” A small, clanking shrug. “The Guildsmen give us many amazing gifts. Sky-ships, chainkatana, ō-yoroi. Yet I do not understand how this gives them the right to dictate morality to my Lord or his people. They are not sworn to the Code of Bushido. They are mechanics, artisans. Not priests. Not to me.”

  The quiet conviction in his voice sent a tingle down Yukiko’s spine, and she stared deep into his eyes, resisting the urge to just plunge in and drown. The revelation that he resented the Guild was a welcome relief, but Buruu’s warning was an insistent echo in her head. Even by a fool’s estimation, this samurai was now her keeper. Her jailer.

  A jailer with the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen …

  “There is nothing you could do that would repel me, Lady.”

  Yukiko could barely hear his voice over the sound of her heart pounding in her chest.

  RAIJIN, TAKE ME NOW.

  She shot Buruu a withering glance as he rolled over on his back and pawed at the sky.

  HAVE MERCY ON ME, FATHER. TAKE MY WINGS. CHAIN ME TO STINKING EARTH. BUT THIS TORTURE I CANNOT ENDURE.

  Oh, shut it.

  “Come on.” She glanced at the Samurai, nodded toward the exit. “I have to see my father. If you’re to be my babysitter now, I suppose you’d better come along.”

  She turned to leave, sparing one last glance for the arashitora on his chain. He looked thoroughly miserable, a beast of thunder and open sky caged in a filthy pit built for murder and mindless bloodshed. Her heart swelled with pity, the knowledge that if not for her, he would never have come here.

  I’ll be back, Buruu. Very soon.

  He blinked at her, eyes of molten honey. To a stranger, his face would have seemed utterly impassive. No lips to smile, no brows to frown. Just a mask of sleek lines and white feathers, smooth and motionless. But she could see it in the tilt of his head, the way his tail switched from side to side, the rise and fall of his flanks as he breathed.

  She could feel it inside him, the rock he had set his back against, the core of his being. A compass that would steer him through this darkness, this torture at the hands of insects, safely out the other side into blinding lightning and howling wind. It would lead him home.

  It was love.

  He nodded, curled his head beneath one crippled wing.

  I WILL BE HERE.

  26

  PORTENTS

  It was waiting for him every time he closed his eyes. A shadow in a darkened room, breath held in anticipation of the candle’s flame that would give it life. Yet he could feel it lingering even when he was awake, seen or unseen, just a nightfall away. A part of him as integral as the heart that pumped his blood, the metal skin encasing his flesh.

  The vision.

  It had been with him since his Awakening, the night they took him from his bed and pushed the smoke into his lungs and opened his eyes to the future that awaited him. And in that awful moment he had seen what he would become. Witnessed the horror and majesty of it all, listening to the grim march of inevitability inside his skull. And from that day to this, the dream had been lurking in the warm dark space behind his eyelids. And he had been dreaming of a way to escape it.

  He heard their voices now. Hundreds of bloody eyes upturned, hundreds of faces watching him with as much fervor as could be found in smooth lifeless brass. Hands held high. Metallic voices echoing on blank stone. They were calling him as they always did.

  “Kin-san.”

  And he answered as he always did.

  “That is not my name.”

  “Kioshi-san.”

  The voice was harsh and metallic, the drone of a fat and hungry lotusfly, pulling him into the harsh light of waking. He blinked away the blur of sleep, pawed at his eyelids in the dirty halogen glow, searching for the source of the sound. He was lying in a metal cot, gray sheets, walls of sweating yellow stone at his back. He recognized the hum of the air filtration system and the groan and clank of great engines
throbbing in the background. It was a tune he had lived with since the day of his birth; the lullaby of the Kigen chapterhouse. The air was moist, and a sheen of sweat on his flesh made the gauze at his throat and shoulder itch, crinkling like dry paper as he ran his hand across it. He realized that he was still skinless, but they had already plugged him back into a mechabacus, bayonet fixtures speared at his collarbone, under his ribs, relays worming toward his spinal column. Out of instinct, he flicked several beads across the device to test the transmission conduits, and received a brief acknowledgment in return.

  “Kioshi-san.”

  Kin turned to the source of the sound, the buzzsaw rasp of heavy breathing, a shadow falling across the light above. He took in the broad silhouette of a Guildsman looming over him in the grubby warmth, dull light gleaming on the sculpted, muscular lines of the atmos-suit, eyes burning like a smog-choked sunset.

  Dread stabbed at Kin’s stomach, and he licked at suddenly dry lips. He recognized the suit, the tiger-stripe pattern of iron-gray filigree across burnished brass. The authority dripping from every word the figure spoke. But most of all, he recognized the face. Unlike the hard insectoid helms of most Lotusmen, the elaborate mask staring down at him was almost human. The sculpted brow and rounded cheeks of a boy in the prime of his youth, rendered in smooth, polished brass; a perfect symmetry that should by all rights have been beautiful. Perhaps it was the cluster of segmented cables spilling from the mouth, as if the child were in the middle of vomiting up a stomachful of iron squid. Perhaps it was the burning red eyes that cast a bloody glow on those full, flawless cheeks. Whatever the reason, there was something wrong about that face; something in it that Kin had always feared.

  The man towering above him had been the closest thing to a friend Kin’s father had ever known. If they were normal people, he might have taken Kin into his own house when Old Kioshi passed away. If Kin were a normal child, it would not have seemed strange to any if he called the man “uncle.”

  But being who and what he was, Kin used the title that everyone else did.

  “Shateigashira.” He tried to make his voice sound strong, covered his fist, bowed as best he could. “The Voice of Chapterhouse Kigen honors me with his presence.”

  “You wake. Good.”

  The huge figure flicked several beads across the mechabacus on his chest, transmitting to the grand library hub at First House. A thousand receivers gathering and transcribing a thousand chits of data every minute, relaying information to the Ministries of Communication, Ordinance, Procurement, Division. Adding to the constant machine hum inside the heads of anyone plugged into the system. The pulse of the machine he had lived with his entire life.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Sore.” Kin touched the bandages again. “Thirsty.”

  “To be expected, after so grand an adventure.”

  There was no trace of amusement in the Shateigashira’s voice. Kin blinked, saying nothing, watching the mechabacus click back and forth on the broad clockwork chest.

  “When your skin transmitted its distress beacon, there were fears you had met your end in the Iishi. But I knew better. We both know you are intended for grander things, Kioshi-san.” The Shateigashira ran one gauntleted hand along the metal railing of the cot; a grinding rasp that set Kin’s teeth on edge. “And yet the Kyodai of the Resplendent Glory tells me that you were naked when his troops found you. Outside your skin. In the company of a hadanashi girl.”

  “The fire.” Kin swallowed. “The damage to my skin. It was unavoidable, Shateigashira.”

  “It was unfortunate, Kioshi-san.” A shake of his head, red light casting frightful shadows across those perfect, frozen features. “A great loss of face. Your father would be ashamed to witness a blessed child fall so low. I am glad he is not alive to see this day. An example must be made to the other Shatei. Even for one such as yourself. There must be punishment.”

  Kin took a deep breath, tried to still the pounding of his heart.

  “I understand.”

  “And yet, the example may be tempered with mercy. The retribution meted out for your transgression may be lessened through your cooperation.”

  Kin already knew what they would ask. As if the act of asking made it any less of a command. As if he had any choice in the matter whatsoever. He breathed deep, tried to remember the taste of clean rain, the feel of the cool mountain breeze on his face, the way her hair rippled like black silk in the wind. He spoke the words as if they didn’t quite fit properly in his mouth.

  “What would you have of me, Shateigashira?”

  “The girl they found you with. The one who tamed the arashitora.”

  “Hai?”

  The towering figure leaned in closer.

  “Tell me everything you know.”

  27

  WISTERIA PERFUME

  The prison was a stinking cesspit of oily stone and rancid air. A forgotten hole into which Kigen justice poured criminals spared from death in the arena or outright execution; a pitiful, lucky few. Debtors and thugs, petty thieves and one-percenters crammed into tiny cells with bars of pitted iron and rotten straw on the floor. No sunlight. No air. Stale bread and black water and bare rock for a pillow.

  The gate guard had taken one look at Hiro in his golden tabard and hissing, clanking suit of ō-yoroi before fumbling for his keys and opening the gate to the cell block. He bobbed and shuffled along a dank corridor, looking back over his shoulder every few feet as if to make sure they were still with him. Beckoning them down twisting stairs into the reeking dark. Small rats scurried away from the torchlight in the guard’s hand, larger ones with tails thick as Yukiko’s thumb standing their ground and screeching in defiance. Buzzing lotusflies swam in corpse-stench as they passed one cell. She covered her mouth and averted her eyes.

  The guard halted deep in the prison bowels, indicating a cell door at the end of the corridor. Handing the torch over, he bobbed his head again at Hiro and retreated a respectful distance. Yukiko turned to the Iron Samurai, nodding toward the cell.

  “I would speak to my father alone, Lord Hiro.”

  He bowed, whirring gears and hissing chi smoke.

  “As you wish, Lady.”

  She approached the cell with slow, heavy tread, torch held high, heart breaking when she saw the pale, filthy figure hunched in the cage. Naked but for a vomit-stained rag, gray skin glistening with a sheen of sallow sweat, palsied with the agony of lotus de-tox. Teeth chattering, head bowed, arms clasped about his knees. Locked in a private hell and not stirring an inch at the light’s approach.

  “Father?” The sob caught in her throat, voice breaking.

  She knelt in front of the cell door, jamming the torch between the bars. Flickering light crept across Masaru’s tattoos, the nine-tailed fox seeming to dance among the shadows. She reached toward him, fingers spread. The reek of the bucket in the corner made her want to retch.

  “Father,” she repeated louder.

  He lifted his head slowly and squinted at the light, knotted tangles of graying hair hanging in dirty strings over his face. Recognition broke through the crust of withdrawal and he blinked, eyes widening, uncurling from his crouch.

  “Yukiko?” he whispered, crawling toward her across the filthy stone. “Lord Izanagi, take me. Are you real, or another smoke vision?”

  “It’s me, father.” She tried to smile, tears rolling down her cheeks, clasping his hand between the bars. “It’s your Ichigo.”

  His face was alight with joy, creeping past the pain and shining in his eyes. “I thought you were dead!”

  “No.” She squeezed his hand. “I saved him, father. The arashitora. He’s here with me.”

  “Gods above…”

  “Where is Kasumi? Akihito?”

  “Gone.” He shook his head, dropped his gaze to the floor. “I commanded them to flee before we reached the city gates. I knew Yoritomo’s wrath would be black. Yamagata…”

  “I know. I know what Yoritomo did. To Yam
agata. To us. I know everything, father.”

  He glanced up, confusion and fear dilating his pupils. The creases at the corners of his mouth and eyes were cut deep; dark furrows in gray stone, scars of a torturous secret held for years. Drowning the pain in lotus smoke, seeking oblivion in drinking dens and gambling pits, hoping for some kind of end to it all. Hollow respite from the secret twisting inside, whispering in the dark. The secret they now shared.

  “You…” There were tears in his eyes. The first time she had ever seen them. “You know?”

  “I know.”

  His sigh seemed to come from the depths of him, someplace dark and poisonous, an exhalation of the toxin he’d breathed since that crushing day. Some part of her had known, had always known. Ever since he’d crouched down beside her in the Shōgun’s garden and told her that her mother was gone, that she had left and would never be coming back. That Yukiko couldn’t say goodbye. And she had blamed him. She had hated him for it.

  “Naomi…” His voice cracked at the name. “Your mother, she begged Yoritomo to release me from his service. Beseeched him on behalf of our family. The babe in her belly. You had grown up without me. She did not want that life for our new child. The Shōgun smiled and nodded, told us he would think on it. That he would give us his answer on the morrow.”

  Masaru blinked hard, screwing his face up tight and willing away the tears. Yukiko held his hand as hard as she could, reached out and brushed his cheeks.

  “They killed her the next morning. I returned from the bathhouse and found her still in bed. Eyes closed. Throat cut.” His voice broke. “The blood…”

  He stared down at his open, empty palm, silent for a long, terrible moment, eyes filled with hatred.